Posts by rdhood

VMware? VM... now where? It's that time of the year again when Dell's virtualization software giant sheds staff

Re: it was a useful day and he led it well.

That's when you know that the business is going down the tubes. When good people actually doing real work get laid off

Bus pass or bus ass? Hackers peeved about public transport claim to have reverse engineered ticket app for free rides

"Duncan Brown, Chief Security Strategist EMEA at Forcepoint, told us:

"Our view is that this is symptomatic of the deprofessionalisation of the development community over the last ten years, and the lack of emphasis on security and testing in today’s appdev world."

What an ass. If you asked me, it is the utter contempt for security that everyone who ever has to deal with it has for it. Its ALWAYS "too hard" from a system management viewpoint or "too expensive" from a development standpoint. It has less to do with the "deprofessionalisation of the development community", and more to do with the fact that companies DONT WANT TO PAY for security development. Its an aspect of the product that you cant show anyone (see, my software is fending off attacks as we speak!), does not get customers to come out of their pocket for extra $$$. It is looked at as a "cost" of doing business, rather than the RIGHT way to do business. And when companies want to pay chickenshit for security, that is exactly what they get. Instead of slamming developers, how about slamming employers who put security about 100th on the list of things to accomplish in the product?

Get this: Mad King Leo wanted HP to slurp two other firms alongside ill-fated Autonomy buyout

"simply one person's opinion"

The one person who happens to be the CFO, the person whose opinion should count

..... and with plenty of supporting evidence and testimony and (ultimately) 20/20 hindsight seemingly supporting every single thing that she said, without a whole lot of other testimony that casts any doubt on her opinion....

Now Chinese-made drones rubbing US govt up the Huawei: 'Strong concerns' DJI kit threat to national security

Re: Start offering evidence

My reply only goes to the point that EVERY company does this. Not just Huawei. And I dont trust google/facebook/mi any more than Huawei. They ALL want your data. Yes, there are other ways to do this, but that was not my point. They ALL do it is my point.

Re: Start offering evidence

Here is the thing.. all of these damned "internet of things" companies ... of all countries... want to take your data and offer it back to you "on demand" through their servers. So you want internet access to you home video? You need a Google/facebook/Huawei/Mi/younameit account. They ALL hobble their products unless you give them access. Could any of these companies offer RTSP service on their cameras so that you could stream to YOUR OWN server and keep your data private? SURE! DO ANY of these companies allow this? HELL NO. They want your data, and to charge you to make it available to YOU on demand. What a F'n Racket.

Put a stop to these damn robocalls! Dozens of US state attorneys general fire rocket up FCC's ass

Re: Of course the FCC is doing nothing

"Elizabeth Warren has been promising to stop robocalls since roughly 2015. It's not like they're weren't a problem BEFORE Pai!"

You must be from the U.K., because ANYONE with a phone in the states is tire of this. I get no less than 25 robocalls PER DAY. In 2015, I got maybe ONE robocall PER WEEK. So I don't know what shitty political point you were trying to make with the Elizabeth Warren remark, but Pai is a monumental ass that is causing every single American with a cell phone account grief. PERIOD

I've had it with these mother-fscking slaps on this mother-fscking plane: Flight fight sparks legal brouhaha over mid-air co-ords

Re: Here have a can of worms...

"On this basis of this, what jurisdiction would cover this if the plane was in international airspace?"

I am glad you asked, because just last week an Italian judge let a cruise ship rapist go based on that exact argument... that the event took place in international waters, and that is not his jurisdiction.

London's Metropolitan Police arrest Julian Assange

Re: You mean

"Those actors paid by the US gov to give them a mechanism to get hold of him and remove a risk to their covering up of questionable stuff that they think they should be allowed to get away with?"

LOL. It strikes me that for thousands of years, folks really have done this time and again. From witch trials to .... who knows... maybe this, someone has always seen advantage in getting an "actor" to throw out allegations in order to get a desired outcome.

Amazon woes and wins, IBM thinks it's solved employee happiness and Duplex phony phone calls everywhere!

Re: About to quit?

:I wouldn't be surprised either if LinkedIn sells web service APIs that make it easy for big employers to build apps that snoop on their employees, e.g. periodically checking if a person's profile has been updated, or they've started linking to recruitment agencies recently."

I am guessing that they do this, and other stuff like it.

Autonomy was a 'pure-play software company', testifies former HP chief exec Léo Apotheker

Re: He still doesn't get that he's in Court

He was richly rewarded for his incompetence. After further sinking HP, THIS was his reward:

"After HP, Apotheker returned to Paris. He, along with some private equity firms in Silicon Valley, are considering to invest in mature and distressed companies. In March 2012, he appeared on a conference call, hosted by Nomura Securities analyst Rick Sherlund.[18]

On June 1, 2012, he was appointed as an independent director to board of the Paris-based information technology services provider, Steria.[19]

"He currently sits on the supervisory boards of Schneider Electric SA, Steria, and GT Nexus. He is also a board member of PlaNet Finance - a non-profit organization.

In December 2012 he was appointed Chairman of the board at KMD, a Danish information technology service provider.[20]

In 2014 he joined UNIT4 - a Dutch software provider, headquartered in the Netherlands - as Non-Executive Chairman of the Board.[21]

In May 2016 he joined Signavio GmbH - a German software provider, headquartered in Berlin - as Non-Executive Chairman of the company's Advisory Board."

So why should he feel any guilt? The industry has already forgiven him! Blame it on the CFO!

Autonomy's financial reports? I didn't even read KPMG's due-diligence, says ex-HP CEO Léo Apotheker

Re: Delegating

"Nothing wrong with delegating his due diligence to people employed (or contracted, in the case of KPMG) for their expertise in such things. If indeed that's what happened.

If that decision went wrong, he's responsible (and he did get the boot), but surely then he himself is of very marginal relevance as a witness. I take it we're due to hear from those to whom due diligence was delegated?"

Actually what you realize is that ANYONE could have done his job. Why again to CEOs get payed so damn much?

Protip: If you'd rather cyber-scoundrels didn't know the contents of your comp, don't apply for a Pakistani passport

"We contacted the Pakistani government..."

I submit that it is just as likely as not to be an inside job with approval of those in charge.

What do sexy selfies, search warrants, tax files have in common? They've all been found on resold USB sticks

Re: Seconhand USB sticks?

"Niche market, I guess."

Strange. 16G sticks are going for something like 2 for $7 (us) NEW. I guess if they are selling them by the handful for $1.... maybe there is a market.

While this CEO may be stiff, his customers are rather stuffed: Quadriga wallets finally cracked open – nothing inside

From chepicap.com,

"The statement by Pragya, an official spokesperson of Fortis Escorts Hospital in Jaipur stated "The patient died here in Fortis and was brought in an extremely critical condition,"

New Indian Express states that the press release surrounding Cottens passing, explains that Cotten was brought to the facility December 8, 2018 around 9:45 PM. The patient had a history of Crohn's disease and was on monoclonal antibody therapy. Cotten was diagnosed at the hospital with a case of septic shock, perforation peritonitis, and intestinal obstruction.

Read more: The QuadrigaCX timeline: as it happened

Cottens condition deteriorated from there, the press release states "At 2:45 pm, Cotten suffered a cardiac arrest but was revived by CPR. he also suffered two subsequent episodes of ventricular tachycardia (fast heart rhythm) for which cardioversion was conducted," the report indicates that Cotten suffered a second cardiac arrest, but could not be saved. He was declared dead at approximately 7:26 PM on December 9, 2018. "

Crew Dragon returns to dry land as NASA promises new space station for the Moon

And with this mission, USSR/Russia is consigned to be the Portugal of the Space Race.

Russia has not produced one successful serious space mission since the fall of the Soviet union. Their space program has been living off the $93million per astronaut that they charge to get to the space station. Their gravy train has just been obsoleted. The U.S., EU, Israel, Japan, and China have all made more serious advances in space in the last 20 years than Russia. Like Magellan, they were there first, but those glory days are gone.

Hipster whines at tech mag for using his pic to imply hipsters look the same, discovers pic was of an entirely different hipster

Anti conformists with a similar lifestyle...maybe....

The neo-nazi anti confirmists tend to look alike, and the hipster anti conformists tend to look a like BUT the hipsters do NOT look like the neo Nazis. Thus, I hypothesize, the universe of anti conformists DO NOT tend to look alike.

Insane homeowners association tries to fine resident for dick-shaped outline car left in snow

Re: Power unchecked

"When asked, 100% of Romans wanted bread and circuses."

Same with Venezuela and Chavez. And that works... until you run out of other people's money. It's one reason why I ambivalent about their plight. I know that if the money was still there, Venezuela would still be cheering on Maduro. They wanted bread and circuses... they voted for it... they got it. Then the money ran out, they figured out that they had ceded all of their power to a tyrant, and can't get it back.

Any of your freedom that you wish to give up.... someone will gladly take from you. Give up enough freedom, and they will make you their slave. So when someone like AOC advances a "green new deal" that promises government takeovers of health care, the energy sector, the farming sector, the transportation sector, and giving money event to people who are unwilling to work... then you should recognize that someone wants to make you a slave.

Only plebs use Office 2019 over Office 365, says Microsoft's weird new ad campaign

Microsoft office had everything I needed about 15 years ago

Seriously. Yes, I need Office every now and then. No, I don't need ANY new updates. NOW, which is more expensive?

Forget your deepest, darkest secrets, smart speakers will soon listen for sniffles and farts too

Re: Bollocks to this creepy shit.

I'll tell you whats going on: People LIKE the idea of a smart speaker. They like that it can voice control automation. They like that it cant deliver information on commmand. What they DONT like is that almost every single piece of information goes through a central computer that records EVERYTHING. At this point, it is really going to be recording EVERYTHING , and not just a few seconds of shit after someone yells "Alexa". Suddenly, every sound in the damn room is a key for your speaker to report back to central command, which means it would record virutally all the time.

We want the smart speaker that works without the internet and a direct connection to Google/Facebook/Amazon

Suunto settles scary scuba screwup for $50m: 'Faulty' dive computer hardware and software put explorers in peril

Re: Fuck!!!

"It's "fuck" when humanity gets to the stage that it trusts a consumer product vendor to provide mission-critical information!"

Um...in that case, we are all "fuck" We depend on consumer product vendors to provide mission critical information all of the time. Look in your CAR. If you are SCUBA diver, you still rely on a WATCH and a PRESSURE GAUGE and DEPTH GUAGE to go on your SCUBA TANK.. These are ALL consumer products that provide mission critical information upon one relies on the way to and during a dive. And this is just a TINY portion of products that are mission critical that we rely on every single day.

The next time you get in a car or start your oven, try to do it without relying on those "fuck" consumer products that you claim. You are left with a Flintstone's car and a hot rock.

Google: Our DeepMind health slurp is completely kosher

re:"anonymous data" is effectively a lie.

Bingo. Data taken out of context is much less useful. Data in context is not anonymous if one looks closely enough.

Premiere Pro bug ate my videos! Bloke sues Adobe after greedy 'clean cache' wipes files

Regardless of the stupidity of the user...

It does not matter that he did not have OTHER backups... they owe him. I am sure that he considered that the cloud had his data, and the drive was his backup. That is a legitimate view to take for a non-technical person. And let me say this: running a video program does not make him a technical person. It makes him a person capable of running a video editing application.

Ultimately, though, Adobe deleted files that it was not authorized to delete. They owe him $$$$.

Samsung: Swanky hardware alone won't save a phone maker

Re: The old business model is the best...

"1. User replaceable battery.

2. microSD card slot.

3. Let the user install their own apps."

Oh, and a spiff that no one else gives you: a working FM radio. So if you need to catch that sports event that is blacked out or on a paid channel, you can listen to it on the radio.

Facebook's new always-listening home appliance kit Portal doesn't do Facebook

The most untrustworthy company in the entire world

""Facebook doesn't listen to, view, or keep the contents of your Portal video calls," the company said. You can turn off the camera and mic with a double tap, and delete your entire voice history with one command."

Maybe true... the instant he said it. As for the future....it is clear to me that Facebook can and will change the terms of service at their pleasure, and that they will change this policy just as soon as it becomes financially favorable to do so (I'll bet their EULA doesn't have they above statement). You simply cannot trust ANYTHING they say with respect to your privacy because they don't respect your privacy.

Renegade 3D-printing gunsmith Cody Wilson on the run in Taipei from child sex allegations

Re: I'm of two minds about this

"I don't think the US REALLY cares about 3D printing of guns though, not enough to make up charges against this guy. "

You don't know U.S. liberals. People who fear just holding a gun. People who prosecute kids for using a pencil like a gun and saying "Pow". YOU don't know squat about the U.S.

Microsoft: You don't want to use Edge? Are you sure? Really sure?

Re: More bloat in an already over bloated OS

"Which means that you can't redistribute it. It in no way means that Microsoft gets to treat your machine as if they own it."

And that, folks, is the crux of all of this. Microsoft is planning on actively scanning everything you do on your system. In my paranoid world, it means that they probably already are

EU wants one phone plug to rule them all. But we've got a better idea.

Re: Be much more interested in...

" I'm in the process of weeding out my micro usb cables that don't work at all, ones that look like they're charging but aren't, and ones that are too thin for my Samsung charger to trust to Rapid Charge."

I did this about 6 months ago. I threw away all of the crappy chargers and cables... tossed them so as never to be tempted to use them again. And I only buy known quality stuff... It makes a huge difference to be using quality cables and chargers everywhere.

Clap, damn you, clap! Samsung's Bixby 2.0 AI reveal is met with apathy

Samsung cant understand plain English...

Seriously, Samung's AI and Voice to text is SO BAD, that I had to shut it all down. It can not figure out what I am saying.... always contains loads of errors. ALWAYS. It is years behind Google and Amazon...

Holy ship! UK shipping biz Clarksons blames megahack on single point of pwnage

How nice...

Your employer loses your info and declares : "watch your credit records!"

No one wants new phones – it's chips that keep Samsung chugging

buy used...

"At my last phone upgrade, I bought a pre-owned iPhone 7 Plus for $400, "

This. I purchased a used Galaxy S8+ for $300. I see people in this forum slam those phones over and over again, but the S8/S8+/pixel 2/etc really are all fine phones. The problem is the price. Nobody would be saying "theres too much this or that or we dont need this or that " if they were giving them away (well, maybe Reg posters would, lol). In may area (a major metro city in the U.S. ) rock bottom prices on a used S8/S8+ right now are $300, and on an S9/S9+ $400., unlocked.

And at $300, I think an S8+ is well worth it.

Chinese boffins: We're testing an 'impossible' EM Drive IN SPAAAACE

Might be cheaper...

If the EM drive is small enough, it might be simpler and less expensive to just put one up and see what happens than to do the hard science and figure out why it does/doesn't work

New Facebook political ad rules: Now you must prove your ID before undermining democracy

Re: democracy

The United states is a Democratic Republic. It is NOT a democracy. It does not claim to be a democracy... except for some liberals who would like it to be so that California and New York could rule the country.

Make masses carry their mobes, suggests wig in not-at-all-creepy speech

Your phone is NOT proof of identity or place

Just like this post is not proof that am rdhood, a mobile phone is not proof that I was any particular place.

My real name is Joe Sixpack, and I have baggy pants'ed old rdhood. He left his phone here, too, and now I am going on a crime spree...

Gmail is secure. Netflix is secure. Together they're a phishing threat

Don't click links in email....

I'm just going to say the obvious: DONT CLICK LINKS IN EMAILS.

This scam fails utterly if the user goes to the Netflix site and logs into their own account. It only succeeds if someone has clicked on a link sent through email.

Just the other day, Google sent me a notification with a G**D*** link in it, and I sent them back a "WTF is this?" message. The average user CANNOT differentiate between a real/fake, and should just about NEVER click a link unless someone has specifically said to them: "I'm sending you a link". And that is what we ought to be teaching the average joe.

Autonomous vehicle claims are just a load of hot air… and here's why

Re: Autopilot fun

"I predict flocking behaviour will be an interesting failure mode for fully autonomous cars..."

Your prediction is already wrong. That was the fault falure mode of all GPS systems for the first 15 years of their existence.. just like your boat example above. We are WAY past that. Waymo already does realtime traffic sensing and makes offers to divert around jams while using their mapping system. It makes sense that they would put this logic, that they already posses, in cars to drive around jams.

A smartphone recession is coming and animated poo emojis can't stop it

IR blaster

Like the IR blaster

OMG... forgot about that one. I had a Galaxy S5, and it controlled nearly every device in my house! Easily worth it just to not have to search my house for remotes.

Re: "Phone makers had banked they could compensate for slowing volume by pushing up prices"

"Hey genius, tell us who do you think will subsidize cheap-shit phones when margins on the high end models shrink"

Umm.... just about EVERYBODY besides Samsung and Apple. LG, Alcatel, Huawei... the list is actually quite extensive. I have a Huawei Sensa right now. $45. 5.5", 1080p screen, enough RAM for me, takes a microsd cardslot, has an FM radio, and a 3.5" jack. The real "problem" is margins . If Samsung or Apple could do with less than 200-300% margins, they could start selling vast amounts of phones. Yes, I would rather have one of the last two or three generations of the big two manufacturers... at Huawei prices. We have not reached peak phone. We have reached peak phone at the current price levels.

Full shift to electric vans would melt Royal Mail's London hub, MPs told

The internal combustion engine is not going anywhere

The world simply does not have the infrastructure to replace even a small percentage of the world's ICE's, and wont for a very long time.

Rock-a-byte, baby: IoT tot-monitoring camera lets miscreants watch 10,000s of kids online

Re: "The main problems..."

"So when they realise they have a crappy failing business model that doesn't provide any recurring revenue they can start charging for storing video"

This. everyone wants another revenue stream. The fact is, there are apps out there that will coordinate RTSP streams from multiple cameras to a storage device ... no 3rd party internet required. But those manufacturers that DID support that in their cheap cameras , INCLUDING MI, have removed that functionality so that they could charge you for cloud storage and viewing. That is a big steaming pile o'crap that is really killing the home security setup, as well as any sort of privacy.

Opportunity knocked? Rover survives Martian winter, may not survive budget cuts

" update to the flight control software"

Hmm. Are they planning on controlling some flight?

Crowdfunding refund judgment doesn't quite open the floodgates

Still wouldn't see me back anything with money i couldn't afford to risk losing!

And as crowdfunding goes ,those are words to live by.

I have bought into 4 campaigns similar to this. Two panned out and delivered a first round of product, and subsequently failed a month or two later, and two others never delivered anything. The value that I received from the two delivered items was exceptional. The problem was that they should have charged more and accepted fewer orders and they might have made it as a business. But they charged too little, were overcome with orders, and the projects that initially delivered subsequently failed.

Anti-missile missile misses again, US military mum on meaning of mess

Bingo! So, NKorea builds 200 missiles for 5 warheads and launches. The U.S. needs 2x/4x/6x/?? that number of WORKING anti missile missiles to ensure that none get through because we don't know which missiles have nuke warheads. The numbers game quickly overcomes missile defense systems.

Google yanks cash firehose from Lunar X Moonshot comp. The actual Moon shot one

Private launch FAIL.

They have spent appx the same amount of time as the original missions to get to the moon in the 1960s. While the U.S. gov't did this 40 years ago, they did it with ancient, heavy technology. I would have thought that a private company using 21st century technology could have accomplished this in a similar timespan as the U.S. gov't 40-50 years ago.

I guess this just illuminates what a damn fine job they did in the 60s.

Google can't innovate anymore, exiting programmer laments

Re: It is inevitable...

"This is just another step in the lifecycle of the IT mega-corporation: they've hit the stage where they are now driven by greed as opposed to any desire to innovate, and projects that are not making money are sidelined or dropped. At the same time, it becomes harder and harder to kick off anything new or innovative because the board/shareholders need proof that the new project is going to be profitable to a desired level within a given timeframe..."

In a nutshell, that was my experience at HP for the last 20 or so years.

Meltdown/Spectre week three: World still knee-deep in something nasty

Re: Google and Intel;

"Intel shouldn't be selling CPUs still at this point that are still vulnerable,"

Bingo. Or, at the very least, they need to release new performance numbers and admit that they have lost the speed crown.

GoPro exits drone market and slashes jobs amid sales warning

Re: I brought in several models ago

"But would you trust the footage of your suicidal stunt being missed due to a shoddy cheap knock off?"

I have been using a "shoddy cheap knockoff" for a year. I guarantee that 99/100 could not tell the diff in footage between this and a gopro. Yes, I would trust a shoddy cheap knock off.

Knock offs...

This past year, the TRUE 4k knockoffs came out... using the same chipsets as gopro... for about $100. Virtually the same camera specs in the same form factor. GoPro is losing the action cam market. They really can't compete with products that are nearly the same but cost 25% as much.

No, BMW, petrol-engined cars don't 'give back to the environment'

In the Science section?

Not only in the Science section, but a headliner. Why? Exactly what does this have to do with Science? In fact, what does this have to do with ANY topic on the register (except maybe Business, but does it even belong there?)

The End of Abandondroid? Treble might rescue Google from OTA Hell

Re: Will this help current phones?

I imagine that, in the beginning, that Google thought that they would put out updates and the bloatware pushers would update THEIR respective images and send out an update. I imagine that Google DID care, but they couldn't fathom that ATT/Verizon/Sprint/Tmobile would sh!t on their customers. Once realized... and with a few really really nasty bugs floating around like a time bomb, Google finally acted.

HPE CEO Meg Whitman QUITS, MAN! Neri to replace chief exec in Feb

Re: Whitman did the right thing

" I expect HPE to come thru. "

Like DEC/Burroughs/Unisys/Sun/SCO/computercodejour before them?

In case you haven't noticed, that does not happen, EVER, in this biz. I'm not saying it can't, just that it hasn't.